Testing the Effect of an Anti-Discrimination Training in the Workplace Using the Host Community Acculturation Scale

This study evaluated the effects of an anti-discrimination training on French employees in Lorraine, France. Participants (N=51) were working for state organizations helping youth under 25 years who experienced difficulties in their social and professional integration. Participants were surveyed twice within a three month interval using the test-retest procedure. Following the completion of the survey at time 1, participants received eight sessions (3 hours each) of anti-discrimination training that focused on the prevention and the fight against discrimination in the work place. At both time 1 and 2 participants completed the Host Community Acculturation Scale (HCAS; Bourhis et al., 1997) within the private domain: once towards ‘valued’ Asian immigrants and once towards ‘devalued’ North African (Maghrebis) Muslim immigrants. Participants also completed a propensity to discriminate scale at time 1 and 2 (Tisserant & Wagner, 2006). Test-retest results show a decrease in the propensity to discriminate and an increase in the endorsement of the individualist acculturation orientation in the HCAS scale. This study demonstrates the relevance of using the HCAS scale in the evaluation of anti-discrimination and diversity management trainings.

Keywords: Anti-Discrimination Training, HCAS

Stream: Learning, Education, Training

Presentation Type: Paper Presentation in English

Paper:
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Christine Poupart

Christine Poupart received her B.Sc. (Hons.) in psychology from the Université du Québec à Montréal. Her research interests include acculturation, diversity and human resources management in the workplace. She is undertaking graduate studies at the Université de Montréal in industrial relations. She also volunteers her time to “AFS Intercultural Canada” which promotes intercultural exchanges and community involvement through international programs offered to youth and adults.

Pascal Tisserant

Pascal Tisserant is assistant professor of social psychology at Université Paul Verlaine – Metz in France. His research interests concern the intersection of work and cross-cultural psychology. His applied work has focused on diversity management, acculturation and discrimination.

Simon Pierre Harvey

Simon-Pierre Harvey obtained his B.Sc. in psychology at the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC). He is presently doing his Ph.D. in experimental social psychology at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). Simon-Pierre conducts research projects dealing with the effect of wealth, power and status on the parity and discriminatory behaviors of ad hoc group in the minimal group paradigm. Simon-Pierre was awarded the Brendan Gail Rule Award for best graduate student submission to the Social-Personality section of the Canadian Psychological Association annual conference in 2007.

Anne Lorraine Wagner

Ph.D Candidate, Psychology, Université Paul Verlaine – MetzFrance

Anne Lorraine Wagner is a Ph.D student in social psychology at the Université Paul Verlaine – Metz in France. She is pursuing investigations of acculturation and discrimination processes in the work setting. With Tisserant, she recently published a government report on presence of stereotyping in school textbooks in France.

Shaha EL-Geledi

Shaha El-Geledi obtained her B.A. in psychology from McGill University. She is presently doing her Ph.D. in social psychology at the Université du Québec à Montréal. She is pursuing her graduate studies on intergroup relations between immigrants and host communities in multicultural societies. She is interested in studying the stability of host community acculturation orientations towards valued and devalued immigrants. Currently, she is conducting studies exploring the impact of priming weak and strong symbolic threats on the acculturation orientations of different host communities in settings which vary in their immigrant-integration policies (eg., Ontario, Québec and France).

Richard Y. Bourhis

Educated in the French and English school system in Montreal, Richard Y. Bourhis obtained a B.Sc. in Psychology at McGill University and a Ph.D. in Social Psychology at the University of Bristol, England. He taught Social Psychology at McMaster University in Ontario and at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) where he is full Professor in the Psychology Department since 1988. Bourhis published extensively in English and French on topics such as cross-cultural communication, discrimination and intergroup relations, immigration and acculturation, bilingualism and language planning. From 1996 to 2006, he was elected Director at UQAM of the Concordia-UQAM Chair in ethnic studies. Richard Bourhis was named director of the Centre d'études Ethniques des Université Montréalaises (CEETUM) at the Université de Montréal in June 2006.